Gural re-states reasons behind decision to close Vernon

October 30, 2007

Vernon Downs owner Jeff Gural has issued a second letter stating the reasons behind his decision to cancel the last four days of racing at the New York track, with the letter reading: "All of us at American Racing and Entertainment regret the circumstances that have forced us to cancel the last two weekends of live harness racing at Vernon Downs.

"I anticipated the passage of the pending legislation in the state assembly and, therefore, intentionally scheduled meetings all day Saturday, November 10^th with our architect and engineers to go over the final plans for the capital improvements contemplated for Vernon Downs utilizing the capital improvement fund set forth in the proposed legislation. In addition, I was looking forward to being on hand for the last night of racing on November 10, and watching the fireworks that would follow.

"The reason I am forced to cancel the final four nights of racing is simple, we currently have a $300,000 shortfall in the purse account despite the fact that three weeks ago, I personally loaned the purse account $400,000 to allow us to continue racing. I was prepared to loan the additional $200,000 needed to finish out the season, but now I have to redirect those funds toward continuing to subsidize the daily costs of operating the facility.

"I recognize this is an inconvenience to our horsemen, but we have lost $7,000,000 at Vernon since the beginning of the year so we are all suffering. The good news is that there will be an additional $200,000 in the purse account when we reopen next spring, so in reality, the horsemen will still be able to race for this money.

"Between Vernon and Tioga, we currently pay approximately $100,000 per day to the State for education, of which $70,000 comes from the VLT revenue and $30,000 comes from our pockets. This simply makes no sense which is why we asked for legislative relief to allow us to survive. We believe that with the additional money for marketing and capital improvement, as set forth in the legislation, we will ultimately be able to continue to pay $100,000 per day without having to reach into our pockets.

"The failure of the Assembly to act based on the complaints from the horsemen in the State was a major setback. Considering that statewide the horsemen receive a $60,000,000 subsidy, and here at Vernon our purses have almost tripled since the last full season of racing. One would think they would be happy.

"Unfortunately, they wanted more, but, we can�t pay more. I�ve now been told through a third party that the horsemen would be willing to settle for 8 �% of the VLT revenue which I offered to them on five separate occasions over the last six months. If that is true than I am hopeful that language including the horsemen and breeders can be added to the bill assuming all of the other tracks go along. It should be noted that under the letter of intent with NYRA their horsemen will receive only 6 �%.

"Mr. Faraldo, attorney for the Vernon Horsemen, was quoted several months ago in a NY Times article as saying it was a bad business decision to reopen Vernon with a 70% tax and hope to compete with an Indian Casino that pays no taxes. I totally agree, but I love harness racing and I consider Vernon with its 7/8 mile track the best place by far to race in New York and only wish that the horsemen appreciated what we have tried to do.

"I recognize that the closing is a hardship to our horsemen and I wish we were racing, but it is more important to have the funds necessary to stay open while we wait for the legislature to act. I believe the future for Vernon is indeed bright and this is just a bump in the road.�

« Back